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We spent this week reading genre theory and trying to nail down a description of a genre.  We began on Tuesday by discussing the process by which genres change and new ones emerge, our example being the blog as a new genre.  We also considered the fact that a new genre may perhaps only be recognized retrospectively.  Continuing with Freadman’s metaphor of genre being a game of tennis, we tried to find the full meaning behind her term “useful uptake.”  If writing well is “securing a useful uptake” from the reader, then the reader must be able to respond to the text; otherwise, the game ends immediately.  The aim of writing is to get a reaction.  We felt that the metaphor stopped a little short, since in a real game of tennis, there must be a winner and a loser.  Our discussion lead us to describe writing and reading as an ongoing volley between author and reader.  We also discussed the rationality of classification.  In The Power of Genre, it was stated that mistakes are necessary in classification.  We interpreted this to means that we are prone to extend our classifications beyond rationality, and in so doing, we make mistakes and see more than what is actually there.  These mistakes enable criticism and further thinking.

On Thursday, we continued discussing valuable mistakes in the context of the particular versus the universal, the individual versus the generalization.  It is when these generalizations are too broad that we make these mistakes.  Rosmarin writes about “deducing genre,” meaning that it is impossible to have all the information when classifying, so mistakes are inevitable, but correctable (and therefore positive).  We did some thought exercises with general and particular statements, observing how mistakes can be made going from one to the other.  We also connected this to the rise of the novel being a particular story replacing the general story of Christianity.  Christianity is the story of people in general living this life to get to Heaven.  A novel follows one particular person on his or her way through life.